Recruiting Timelines, Part II

The first thing to note is that in my prior look at when players committed to Texas Tech, I did not count commitments prior to March, just the actual players that committed in March. For this exercise, I change that and I also recalculated Texas Tech’s numbers. Any player that committed before March or during the month of March got lumped into the month of March. I wanted an accurate number of scholarships, so I just included them in that month. I used all of the data via Rivals, so if you are curious as to a commitment date. Also, there were a few with no commitment date, so I just included those in March as well. I had no idea what to do with those.

Oklahoma State

Oklahoma State is very much a proponent of going heavy very early. By the end of June, they have half of their class, 10.4 commits from March to June. And you’ll note how the recruiting calendar changed as they went from 4 commits in 2015 and 2016 in February to 0 the last three years, they loaded up in December and January.

Oklahoma State

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

Average

March

2

3

4

3

2

2.80

April

1

3

1

1

1

1.40

May

3

4

2

0

0

1.80

June

8

5

3

4

2

4.40

July

0

0

2

2

0

0.80

August

1

1

1

1

1

1.00

September

1

0

0

0

2

0.60

October

0

1

0

0

2

0.60

November

0

0

3

4

1

1.60

December

3

4

3

2

3

3.00

January

1

2

1

0

2

1.20

February

0

0

0

4

4

1.60

20

23

20

21

20

20.80

Iowa State

Matt Campbell was hired in November of 2015, so that’s why you see so many commits in December of 2016 as the prior coach, Paul Rhoads was struggling a bit. That 2016 class really throws things off in terms of numbers. Starting in the 2017 season, Campbell is averaging about 11 commits from March to June. So Campbell started pretty quickly right out of the gate, basically the 2017 class should be Campbell’s first class (not the 2016 class) and for comparison purposes, the 2019 class for Wells would be that in-between class and the 2020 class for Wells would be like the 2017 class for Campbell.

Interesting thing is that Campbell is the only coach to average more than 1 commit for the month of September. That’s usually a pretty dead period it appears, except for Campbell.

One other thing to really note is that Iowa State had 28 commits in that weird year of 2016 and they are averaging almost 23 commits per class. That’s a lot and I think that’s pretty significant thing to discuss (we’ll do this in Texas Tech’s portion).

Iowa State

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

Average

March

4

1

3

1

2

2.20

April

2

2

5

0

0

1.80

May

1

4

1

0

0

1.20

June

5

3

2

1

3

2.80

July

3

1

0

0

2

1.20

August

0

0

2

0

1

0.60

September

2

3

2

2

1

2.00

October

0

1

1

1

0

0.60

November

0

0

1

1

0

0.40

December

2

3

1

12

5

4.60

January

0

1

5

5

4

3.00

February

2

2

0

5

3

2.40

21

21

23

28

21

22.80

Baylor

LOL. Wanna guess when Matt Rhule was hired? That’s not a shot at Rhule, the same thing could be said for Campbell at Iowa State, there’s just this huge number of commits that throws everything off. Rhule took over at Baylor in December of 2016 or January of 2017 and they had a whole class that they had to fill. That’s the reason for the 21 commits in January of 2017. Since 2018, Rhule has averaged 12 commits by June of 2018 and 2019.

Also note the sheer numbers for Rhule, he’s averaging 24.67 commits per class.

Baylor

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

Average

March

3

4

0

5

4

3.20

April

0

3

0

1

1

1.00

May

3

3

0

0

1

1.40

June

6

3

0

4

1

2.80

July

1

1

1

0

1

0.80

August

2

2

0

0

1

1.00

September

0

0

0

1

1

0.40

October

0

1

0

0

1

0.40

November

1

0

0

2

1

0.80

December

6

4

3

1

1

3.00

January

1

1

21

0

5

5.60

February

2

0

2

0

1

1.00

25

22

27

14

19

21.40

TCU

TCU is definitely a bit different. They average about 8.8 commits from March to June, and that figure would be higher, but they had a wonky year in 2017 when they didn’t have a single commit in March or April (it apparently happens other places too!). But then the Horned Frogs really turn it on late as they then average about 8.8 commits from December through February. So they very start early and end finish strong as well.

TCU

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

Average

March

5

3

0

5

9

4.40

April

2

1

0

0

0

0.60

May

1

2

1

1

0

1.00

June

2

4

3

2

3

2.80

July

1

3

1

1

0

1.20

August

2

1

0

1

1

1.00

September

0

1

1

1

0

0.60

October

0

1

2

1

0

0.80

November

2

0

0

1

1

0.80

December

7

2

2

4

5

4.00

January

3

1

6

4

1

3.00

February

1

2

4

1

1

1.80

26

21

20

22

21

22.00

Texas Tech

The most disturbing thing here isn’t when players committed it is that Kingsbury, for the most part, averaged about 20.75 commits per year and in comparison to other programs, that seems low. My thought here is that if you have problems developing players, the sheer number of players should help you offset some of that. Maybe you hit on a kid that is under-recruited, but you don’t get that option if you don’t actually find players. For teams like TCU and Oklahoma State, where they have a history of finding and developing players, it is understandable if their classes stay at around 21 or 22, but for a program like Texas Tech, where Kingsbury needed more players, that’s kind of a problem in my estimation.

By June, Texas Tech’s classes were averaging 8.8 commits per season. That’s about on par with other programs. The things that throw everything off are David Gibbs’ JUCO haul in December of 2017 and of course hiring Wells in November of 2018, 10 players commit from December through February.

I know that Wells mentioned after signing day that he didn’t want to lower his level of players that he wants to commit and that’s fine. Baylor and Iowa State had huge numbers when they made their coaching change. If you want to know the average stars on those late classes, Baylor averaged about 2.9, while Texas Tech and Iowa State averaged 2.6 for those classes after the coaching hire.

My biggest takeaway isn’t whether or not Texas Tech is on track right now, I’m not too overly concerned about the number of commits as of this date in May of 2019. I am concerned about the number of commits by the end of the year. Texas Tech should have 25 commits by the end of the next 2 or 3 seasons and if they’re relatively close to what Texas Tech has previously recruited and Wells’ philosophy of developing players takes hold (that’s a lot of if’s) then Texas Tech should be back on track. The small classes the past few years for Kingsbury are worrisome from my perspective and Wells simply has to increase those numbers.